Forty years ago today...

[Blue J]

...was the famous New York blackout. July 13, 1977.

 

This thread might not get much traction, I don't know, but...I just watched a documentary about it recently that was on Netflix. Speaking as a non-New Yorker, of course (but one who happens to love the city), I learned a lot. It was fascinating. In some ways terrible, but other ways, not.

 

I thought there might be a few people here who could offer first-hand accounts, or memories, or what-have-you.

[JohnRogers]

I remember it. I was ten and spent the whole time with grand mother. My dad the cop was working over time and mom was temporarily institutionalized.

[Blue J]

I remember it. I was ten and spent the whole time with grand mother. My dad the cop was working over time and mom was temporarily institutionalized.

 

What was your father's detail? Do you know what kind of experience he had that day?

 

(Or if you'd rather not say, that's okay, too).

[Maverick]

That was a crazy time! I remember the Newsweek or Time magazine cover. (I remember the cover picture, not the magazine.)

 

 

[Cygnus 2112]

I remember the 2003 Detroit and area blackout. Not old enough to remember this one.

[Lucas]

I remember the hysteria, which was compounded by the fact that the area was dealing with The Son Of Sam murders .. Between the blackout and a serial killer, it was literal chaos

 

http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/blackout.jpg

[ILSnwdog]

Wasn't there a spike in births nine months after the blackout?

[Lucas]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2284151.1436293291!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/black-blackout-new-york-1977.jpg

[Lorraine]

Do you mean the blackout in the midsixties?

[JohnnyBlaze]

Do you mean the blackout in the midsixties?

 

No, he means exactly what he said: July 13, 1977.

 

But now it just made me think: just 6 years ago on the same date were the triple Mumbai bombings which resulted in more than 2 dozen killed and over 100 injuries.

[JohnRogers]

Wasn't there a spike in births nine months after the blackout?

That was the 1965 blackout. I didn't realize at the time that the '77 blackout's looting and burning was the nail in the coffin of so many neighborhoods. Now many of those 'hoods are back thanks to evil gentrification.

[Blue J]

Wasn't there a spike in births nine months after the blackout?

That was the 1965 blackout. I didn't realize at the time that the '77 blackout's looting and burning was the nail in the coffin of so many neighborhoods. Now many of those 'hoods are back thanks to evil gentrification.

 

Yes...in the doc that I saw, it talked about the one in '65, also- and about how much different the public reaction to it was.

 

True also about some of those neighborhoods never recovering, after the summer of '77.